Rural Employment Diversification in India: Trends, Determinants and Implications on Poverty

This paper has studied rural employment diversification in India and across major states using NSSO data at household level for the period 1983 and 2009-10. Factors affecting rural employment diversification towards non-farm sector have also been studied. Analysis has shown that the non-farm sector has consistently grown over time and employed nearly one-third of the rural workforce in 2009-10, as compared to merely one-fifth in 1983 at all-India level. The similar trend is seen across major states as well, though the pace and pattern varied widely. In providing employment to rural workforce, increasing dominance of crop production, followed by animal husbandry was observed across major states during 2009-10. The share of fishery and forestry was negligible in providing employment to the rural workforce. The study has revealed that the increasing rural non-farm employment has positive and significant effect on reducing rural poverty at all-India level. A positive link between income and employment has also been observed in diversifying towards horticultural activities. A well designed area-specific programme should be evolved to help improve skill of rural workforce, which in turn would benefit in getting employment in the non-farm sector.Rural employment, Employment diversification, Crop sector, Agricultural and Food Policy, J21, J23, O15, O18,

Smallholder Dairy Farmers’ Access to Modern Milk Marketing Chains in India

The smallholder dairy farmers’ access to modern milk marketing chain has been assessed in India by collecting data at the farm level in two states, viz. Bihar and Punjab. These states are among the largest milk producing states of the country but depict stark variations in terms of milk productivity and per capita milk availability. Another significant feature is the emergences of modern milk marketing chains in both the states. The study has shown that in spite of the growing presence of modern milk supply chains, the traditional milk supply chain is still dominant in the Indian milk market. Its presence is even more pronounced in less-developed states like Bihar. However, the traditional milk supply chain is being replaced, albeit slowly, with the commercialization of dairying. The structure of the milk marketing in Punjab has depicted this conclusion. The study has concluded that the modern milk supply chain seems to have an inclusive structure and the resource-poor dairy farmers are not excluded from the modern milk supply chain. The study has argued that the traceability and food safety issues will further strengthen the modern milk supply chain. The scalability of the modern milk supply chain will depend on the development of milk collection and transportation facilities and incentive pricing for a quality produce.Milk marketing chain, Smallholders, Dairy farmers, Modern milk marketing chain, Bihar, Punjab, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q12, Q13,

EFFECTS OF NIPAH VIRUS IN TODAY’S WORLD

The effect of Nipah Virus Infection is increasing day by day in today’s scenario and more number of cases are found in various countries. In India it was discovered in Sikkim, Siliguri and West Bengal. It is near borders with China, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sikkim. The primary pathways of transmission is from bats to people, in Bangladesh its transformed via contamination of raw date palm sap by bats with subsequent consumption by humans and through infection of domestic animals (cattle, pigs, and goats), presumably from consumption of food contaminated with bat saliva or urine with subsequent transmission to people. It is found in both species of humans as well as animals more number of deaths was found in the both spices, hence zoonotics. Laboratory investigations at the time of the outbreak did not show or identify an infectious agent. Approximately half of recognized Nipah cases in Bangladesh developed their disease following person to person transmission of the virus. Efforts to prevent transmission should focus on decreasing bat access to date palm sap and reducing family members' and friends' exposure to infected patients' saliva or body fluids

Livestock Sector in North-Eastern Region of India: An Appraisal of Performance

Although agriculture is the prime source of livelihood for a majority of rural population in the North-Eastern region (NER) of India, dependence on livestock as an alternative source of income is significant. Responding to the burgeoning demand for livestock products in a sustainable manner is a big challenge. The widening gap between the demand and supply of livestock products can be met through bringing out changes in the production structure or opening up the international trade. In this context, an analysis of performance and factors influencing development of the livestock sector in NER has been carried out. The growth of livestock sector has been found slower in the NER than at the national level. However, a significant proportion of landless labourers, small and marginal farmers have access to livestock resources and acceleration in the growth of livestock in NER offers significant opportunities for household income augmentation and employment generation. Several factors identified to influence households’ decision to rear livestock include availability of labour, occupation, caste, farm-size, availability of irrigation, and access to information sources. The study has shown that the NE states should take technical, institutional and policy initiatives for the improvement of breeds, feed availability, disease control and food safety of livestock.Livestock Production/Industries,

The general solutions of a functional equation related to information theory

The general solutions of a functional equation, containing two unknown functions, and related to a functional equation characterizing the Shannon entropy and the entropy of degree alpha, are obtaine

On a Functional Equation Related to Information Theory

The general solutions of a functional equation, without imposing anyregularity condition on the mappings appearing in it, have beenobtained. One solution of this functional equation is useful frominformation-theoretic point of view

On a sum form functional equation

The general solutions of a sum form functional equation containing two unknown mappings, without imposing any regularity condition on them, have been obtained.Publisher's Versio

Exploration of Level of Computer Anxiety among Veterinary Students

Purpose: The study was executed to have an insight to the computer anxiety of veterinary science students pursuing bachelor and masters’ degree programmes, respectively, at Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Punjab (India). Design/ Methodology: A pretested and validated Computer Anxiety Rating Scale (CARS) was applied to examine the computer anxiety level of veterinary students. Stratified random sampling method was used to choose sample for study. The data analysis was performed using percentage, frequencies and via Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings: Results revealed that irrespective of the gender, possession of personal computer and internet connection, veterinary students were well versed with computer as majority were having low level of computer anxiety. Further computer anxiety was negatively correlated with student’s grade point, experience in using computer and time spent on computer and internet. Originality/ Value: This is the first known attempt to examine the computer anxiety level of veterinary students. The results of study strengthen the pivotal role of computer in veterinary education and experience as well as in academic excellence

Effect of Integrated Nutrient Management on Growth, Flowering Behaviour and Yield of African Marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) Cv. African Giant Double Orange

A field experiment was carried out to study the effect of integrated nutrient management on growth, flowering behaviour and yield of marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) at the main experiment station, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Narendra Nagar (Kumarganj), Faizabad, during 2004 and 2005 in Randomized Block Design. There were thirteen treatments involving two biofertilizers, viz., Azotobacter and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria (PSB) and two levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, viz., (50% and 100%), farm yard manure (FYM) and control (recommended dose of NPK., i.e., 200:100:100 kg/ha). One month old seedlings were transplanted at a spacing of 40 x 30 cm. Results revealed that combined application of Azotobacter and PSB with FYM and 50% recommended dose of nitrogen and phosphorus significantly improved growth, flowering behavior and yield during both years (2004 and 2005). Application of Azotobacter + PSB + FYM @ 30 ha-1 + nitrogen @ 100 ha-1 and phosphorus @ 50 kg/ha was found to be best for growth, flowering behaviour and yield of cv. African Giant Double Orange

Simple and Efficient Group Key Distribution Protocol using Matrices

Group Key Distribution (GKD) protocols are designed to distribute a group key to several users for establishing a secure communication over a public network. The central trusted authority, called the key distribution center (KDC) is in charge of distributing the group keys. For securing the communication, all the users share a common secret key in advance with KDC. In this paper, we propose a secure and efficient Group Authenticated Key Distribution (GAKD) protocol based on the simple idea of encryption in matrix rings. In this protocol, each user registers in private with the KDC, while all the other information can be transferred publicly. The scheme also supports authentication of group keys without assuming computational hard problems such as Integer Factorization Problem (IFP).The analysis of our GAKD protocol shows that the proposed protocol is resistant to reply, passive and impersonation attacks. Our construction leads to a secure, cost and computation- effective GAKD protocol